Page:The Elder Edda and the Younger Edda - tr. Thorpe - 1907.djvu/229

 55. Much have I in memory how I was treated, when ye me so cruelly had deceived: robbed I was of happiness, while my life lasted.

56. Thou wilt desire Oddrun to possess, but Atli will permit it not; in secret ye will each other meet. She will love thee, as I had done, if us a better fate had been allotted.

57. Thee will Atli barbarously treat; in the narrow serpent-den wilt thou be cast.

58. It will too come to pass, not long after, that Atli will his soul resign, his prosperity, and cease to live: for Gudrun in her vengeance him in his bed will slay, through bitterness of spirit, with the sword's sharp edge.

59. More seemly would appear our sister Gudrun, had she in death her first consort followed, had but good counsel been to her given, or she a soul possessed resembling mine—

60. Faintly I now speak—but for our sake she will not lose her life. She will be borne on towering billows to King Jonakr's paternal soil. Doubts will be in the resolves of Jonakr's sons.

61. She will Svanhild send from the land, her daughter, and Sigurd's. Her will destroy Bikki's counsel: for Jormunrek for evil lives. Then will have passed away all Sigurd's race, and Gudrun's tears will be the more.

62. One prayer I have to thee yet to make, in this world 'twill be my last request: Let in the plain be raised a pile so spacious, that for us all like room may be, for those who shall have died with Sigurd.

63. Bedeck the pile about with shields and hangings, 201